Category: licensing

“A money lender who ‘flouted the law’ to make more than £2 million from loan agreements despite being refused a credit licence has become the first person to be subjected to a serious crime order imposed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).”

‘Brent Council v Shah and Others, unreported 29 January 2018 (Crown Ct (Harrow). The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (‘POCA’) has been successfully used by Brent Council against landlords for breach of licencing conditions.’

‘Landlords renting properties in England occupied by five or more people, from two or more separate households, will need to hold a house of multiple occupation (HMO) licence from April 2018, Housing Minister Alok Sharma has announced.’

‘In 2014, Starham bought a piece of land on the Harrow Road. Most of the land was being used as a beer garden by the Masons Arms pub, owned by Greene King. Starham claimed this use was a trespass. Greene King claimed it was entitled to use the land as a beer garden by virtue of a right created by a conveyance dated 24 August 1855 which it said was an easement or a restrictive covenant.’

‘On 19 Sept 2017, I chaired seminars in the studios of Northern Ballet in Leeds and at the Barnsley Business and Innovation Centre in South Yorkshire at which Tom Duke, our intellectual property attaché in Beijing, spoke on “Succeeding in China – How to mitigate IP risk” as part of a China IP Roadshow (see Jane Lambert Meet our IP Attaché to China 21 July 2017 IP Yorkshire). One of the reasons why Tom made that tour is that an increasing number of British IP owners contract with manufacturers in China and other countries where production costs are lower than in the UK to make goods for them under licence. Often such arrangements work very well but sometimes they can go very badly wrong.’

‘In FRAND 8 Oct 2017 I discussed the terms upon which patents for inventions that are essential to a standard are licensed. I noted that courts around the world had held that those terms should be fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory – in other words, FRAND. The Court of Appeal’s decision in Koninklijke Philips N.V. v Asustek Computer Incorporation and Others [2017] EWCA Civ 1526 (11 Oct 2017) concerned the construction of a clause licensing such patents. It is important to note, however, that none of the judges who heard the appeal mentioned the acronym, FRAND, and it appeared only twice in the judgment of the trial judge.’

‘FRAND stands for “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory”. It refers to the terms upon which the owner of a patent for an invention that is essential to a standard (“standard essential patent” or “SEP”) should license its use.’

‘A private hire cab driver in Milton Keynes has been convicted of illegally plying for hire (blagging), with the magistrates’ court rejecting his argument that as he had make the booking on behalf of the customer the fare was lawful.’

‘The UK’s antislavery body has launched 185 investigations since May, nearly double its total for the whole of last year, after assuming powers that allow it to look beyond the food and farming sector.’

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